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Archives of Nethys

Archives of Nethys

Pathfinder RPG (1st Edition) Pathfinder RPG (2nd Edition) Starfinder RPG

Rules Index | GM Screen | Player's Guide
Battlecry!

Genres of War

Source Battlecry! pg. 197
The stories of war change depending on the characters’ relation to it. Although the most obvious war stories are those set on the battlefield itself, the war can be distant in location or even time. The causes of war stretch far before the first battle and, by the time they get rolling, the disruption can spread across continents and ages.

War as a Backdrop

Source Battlecry! pg. 197
Sometimes, the protagonists don’t interact with the war directly in the story. Perhaps the war ended recently. The armistice was announced, the treaty was signed, and the armies returned home. The war remains a scar on society, the elephant in every room, but at least it’s over. Or perhaps the war is still raging, but it’s over there and the player characters are far from the battlefield. They’re on the home front, or even in a different country altogether, separate from all the fighting and violence.

This sort of war can still have an impact on the campaign, even if the player characters never see a battlefield. A war in the background can inspire character backstories and motivations, provide tone and atmosphere, and even define the core plot line for a campaign.

Characters: To begin with, a war provides an excellent excuse to have many characters running about who are skilled in the arts of violence. The specifics will differ, but a large war means a lot of people will have served in arms. Antagonists will have a steady supply of capable minions, and any unassuming character (like the PCs) might possess deadly skills.

War can also serve for character motivation and drama. The trope of a character haunted by their actions during a war, by violence done and friends lost, is an ancient and powerful one. Some people might return from war swearing that it must never happen again, while others become determined not to render their comrades’ sacrifices in vain. Vivid memories, sometimes seeming more real than the present, can haunt or inspire. And a few people will find that they thrive in war, whether from a love for violence or a fierce commitment to their cause.

Tone: In some stories, the war is ongoing but not shown directly. In those campaigns, the atmosphere is going to be one of tension. People will be afraid, angry, or grimly determined. Hatred of the enemy will be commonplace and tacitly or openly encouraged by the powers that be, possibly with grim consequences for citizens sharing a now-suspect origin. Fear will be equally widespread—fear for the country, but also fear for friends and family on the front lines. There will be dramatic displays of patriotism and conviction to hide the tense undercurrent.

In campaigns where the war has ended, the story takes on a more elegiac tone. The war is over, and victorious or defeated, there was suffering and loss. The dead are mourned. Farms lay fallow, businesses closed, and relationships were shattered. The living remain, but many are wounded in body or in spirit. If victorious, at least the winners can cling to what victory bought them—sometimes this is enough, for a noble cause. But the defeated can be bitter indeed, willing to believe anything to save their pride.

Plot: War is important for narrative. In a big war, governments will do anything to win, and that anything is just the kind of situation that calls for player characters. A government might invest in some secret project—a radical new technology, some long forgotten magic, or perhaps recruiting a dangerous and uncertain ally. “Old military project” is a common horror story origin for good reason. The need to win, the need to justify the loss of friends and comrades, can justify all kinds of very bad ideas.

War on the Horizon

Source Battlecry! pg. 197
Things are a little different when the war has not yet begun. War, in this case, acts as a more realistic version of the apocalyptic disaster that often faces heroes who fail to stop the villains—the world might not end, but a great many will die all the same. To simplify a library’s worth of political theory, this kind of campaign can deal with two sorts of wars, the accidental and the intentional.

Accidental: No war is strictly accidental, but the war the protagonists are facing in this kind of story isn’t anyone’s actual goal. Rather, it’s the result of dozens of interlocking rivalries, alliances, petty hatreds, past decisions, and geopolitical realities. The people involved might be doomed patriots doing their best, or they might be short-sighted blunderers unable to grasp the consequences of their actions, depending on how idealistic one is feeling, and rarely is one side any nobler than any other.

Typically, the protagonists in this kind of story stumble across some kind of conspiracy or scheme that, if successful, would trigger the war. In some cases, the villains might intend to bring about a cataclysmic war, but just as plausible is that the antagonists are too stubborn to see the consequences of their own actions. Thus, it’s up to the heroes to unravel the plot, with a climax in which they hurry to avert the attack or incident that will be everyone’s doom.

Intentional: When an intentional war is on the horizon, this usually means that one nation is gearing up for a big war, whether anyone likes it or not. Usually, the warmongers are a deeply unsympathetic, odious crew, with a whiff of fascism or imperialism about them. The other countries might be benevolent little kingdoms or might have their own issues, but they usually are at least a few shades of gray lighter than the villains.

Typically, this kind of war can’t be entirely averted, but the heroes are nevertheless in a position to change the calculus. Perhaps they need to secure some secret weapon, steal it from a wizard’s lab, or recover it from an ancient ruin all while fighting with agents of the hostile power. Alternatively, they need to travel to a distant land and brave a decadent court to secure a vital treaty while the enemy’s ambassador schemes and plots. Perhaps it’s just time to gear up and kill a tyrant.

On the Front Lines

Source Battlecry! pg. 198
Sometimes, though, there’s no substitute for the real thing. In these campaigns, the player characters are part of a large and reasonably organized army, marching across the land from battle to battle. Perhaps the heroes are mere grunts, footsloggers just trying to get through one more day. Perhaps they’re kings and generals, scheming and creating strategies and worrying about the big picture. Most likely they’re somewhere in the middle. This is the “real” war campaign.

One can tell stories about war in a lot of ways, but a few stand out. The following are some of the main frameworks for telling war stories, though it should be noted that they aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive— while one tone usually dominates, others can appear strategically (to keep the story from getting stale if nothing else).

War Is Hell: A popular framework for telling stories about war is to emphasize the absolute horror and misery of it. In these sorts of stories, much is made of the constant death, the fear, the helplessness. You could die in war, and it doesn’t matter how brave or smart or strong you are; there won’t be a thing you can do about it. Your superiors are fools and madmen, your orders are nonsense, your strategic goals are a mystery, and your enemies are sadistically inventive in their efforts to kill you. The people on the home front have no conception of how bad things get, and your comrades in arms, the only people who do understand, are slowly whittled away by enemy fire or else lose themselves to the stress and trauma. War crimes are committed on all sides.

Despite this narrative’s popularity, it’s an awkward fit for a Pathfinder campaign. This genre draws a lot of its grim horror from the helplessness of the typical soldier in the face of forces greater than them, but most player characters have far more options and far more agency than the doomed protagonists of those stories. It can also be draining and not terribly fun to play in for an extended period of time. Still, this can be used sparingly to good effect, reminding the protagonists that actions have consequences.

War Is Glorious: Sometimes, it’s about fighting the good fight. In this kind of campaign, war can be ugly and brutal and messy, but there’s a point to it. Usually, there’s some kind of moral or ideological goal, something that the characters can point to when asked “was it all worth it?” That is not to say that there aren’t any doubts or setbacks, but there is a cause, and people can and will give their lives for that cause.

This is the default framing for a Pathfinder war story, which allows the protagonists to focus more on the practical challenges of victory rather than on moral quandaries. Often, these stories will further simplify matters by having all or most of the enemy force be composed of undead, demons, or similar entities. Because, really, it’s always fun to kill zombies.

War Is Farcical: More often seen in older media, this approach focuses less on the fighting and more on the military itself. An army is an instrument of policy and a tool of violence, but it’s also a large, bureaucratic organization in a constant state of chaos. The opportunities for rather dark comedy are limitless. Orders are contradictory, the high command is out of touch, no one knows what they’re doing (including the enemy), and everyone is just trying to get through one more day. In practice, the differences between tragedy and comedy are mostly a matter of tone and perspective, the day-to-day fumbles of any large organization played for drama in the first case and humor in the second.

Behind Enemy Lines

Source Battlecry! pg. 198
Finally, in some war campaigns the player characters are far behind enemy lines, and a big friendly army is little more than a wistful dream. In these cases, the protagonists might be spies or commandos sent into enemy territory, either for one important job or as a long-term infiltration. They might be resistance fighters, trying to throw out some hostile occupying force. Or perhaps they’re guerrillas, hidden deep in a forest or cavern, and coming out to strike at the enemy. These stories can also intersect with the other genres presented, either temporarily or long-term—perhaps the protagonists are infiltrating the enemy’s front-line army, or perhaps the war hasn’t quite started yet but will any minute now.

Stories set behind enemy lines have a great deal in common with espionage and even crime stories. In all cases, the heroes are in a deeply hostile and dangerous environment. It doesn’t matter how powerful the player characters are; if they remain out in the open long enough, then the enemy can and will destroy them. Their only hope of survival lies in stealth and secrecy. They might act openly for a little while, but how to escape before enemy reinforcements show up will be a part of every mission’s planning—except, perhaps, the last.

Stories set behind enemy lines will usually be a bit darker and more morally complex than frontline stories, even if they tend to be less directly violent. For this narrative to work, the enemy can’t be faceless monsters or soulless undead. They’re people, to be manipulated or beguiled or killed as appropriate. Some might be evil monsters, but others may well be somewhat sympathetic, servants of their country right or wrong.

More optimistic stories of this stripe might end with a popular revolution and will allow the player characters to convert the more sympathetic of their foes to their side. More cynical narratives play out like a horror campaign, allies dropping one by one in the face of an implacable security state, the heroes trying to strike one last desperate blow before they too are captured and killed at dawn.